Tournament Eve ramblings: Stay cool, m....f.... y'all know the rules

Okay! 1 sleep til main event jr commences tomorrow. I really like the fact that this $1000.00 event is just a warm up to the $3000.00 event.

I also like the fact that I cleaned house last friday playing with the bros, and survived a field of 1000 in a $1 turbo rebuy online yesterday to parlay $5 total buy in into $450 coming in 3rd.

These cheap turbo rebuys (UB has always had one: the new schedule made it a $5000 guaranteed and starts it at 9:00 UB time)have always been a bit of bread and butter for me. I think I've won a dozen outright. But this one is a bit different with such a large field and big pot relative to cost. Given that, after a recent withdrawal, my UB account was a bit short and I had squandered some more expensive opportunities that day, and once I had gotten a decent stack, I committed to playing strong and making a run at it.

Playing strong does not always mean playing strong cards: it means putting your chips in in a few fair fights and gambling. K8 looks huge when you're constantly running from blinds which keep creep at 1/10 of your stack no matter how often you seem to be improving. Sometimes it is just a matter of making sure you are heads up with 2 live cards. Throwing in with A4 is never a smart move: it practically guarantees being a 30% dog if called, and often in these, calls have to be expected. No one lays down AQ or 99 in these things. 96 sooted is in a fair fight with AQ.

This is good comparable pressure to what I expect to face in the next 5 days. In these games, I may be looking at 45 minute and one hour levels, and 2-3 hours before the levels reach 1% of the starting stacks, but the time will come when a bad beat puts me in desperation mode and forces me into more gambling and erratic play.

I find that a little erratic play is MORE effective in protecting your blinds than tight play. If I will call or raise with 69 and gamble, will you attempt to steal with A7? I will have to play fearless and follow my guts and my reads where I sense weakness to win this. BLuffs are post-flop plays: these are gambles.

Let us, on a similar topic to last big blog, discuss the opposite, bluffs that are traps. We discussed a number of cases of how to get paid with trips: let me give you a great example of how I parlayed 4000 chips into 13000 chips in one hand when the blinds were 150/300 in last week's Wednesday $100 casino game.

These stories emphasize the key importance of live play strategies vs. online. I did some magnificent trapping online yesterday with AAs and KKs to maximize chip results in the turbo, but that's easy. Keeping your cool and shifting gears effectively in live play to maximize requires, mainly experience and understanding.

I am in the BB. I have paid 300, leaving me 3700 in chips. I am a mediocre stack with one viable play left in any raised pot.

UTG limps in. He will not be a factor in the hand.

The next player has double my chips, and limps in. He is an older white guy, and my observations put him at a pretty conservative player. Lets call him Steve.

Beside him is an older oriental guy, the kind of guy who will raise any ace. Lets call him Joe. Joe has about 10,000 chips. He limps in.

Play folds to me, including the SB, and I now wake up to look at AA.

Rockets in the pocket, three players interested in a flop, and I will play out of position the whole hand. Opportunity is at hand, but with only 1350 in the pot, 300 my own, the last thing I want to do is scare off my opponents. If I panic, wait to long, or get that buzz that says monster going, I will get nothing but the limps.

"I'll raise" I say calmly. How much? I don't announce immediately. I sense the limpers are watching me. I decide that the "standard raise", to 900, is right here. I do not wish to take enormous time debating this. I want my raise to be done quickly and efficiently, without spills, nervous ticks, or obvious deliberation suggesting "how do I get paid here?"

This is a good bet and a bad bet:

The good:

- With one or two callers, I build a pot of 2550-3150, allowing me to bet the pot with my remaining chips on the flop:
- It is standard enough to be relatively meaningless: it is a value raise, but looks to the unfamiliar as a weak steal attempt from someone who needs to get some chips and lacks much experience to know that this sum is too small to steal, when pot odds of 600 into 1950 supports anyone with 30% to win calling even if they knew I had AA: the BB raise is also such a common steal, that I can raise here while disguising the strength of my hand

The bad:

- You put this value raise together with ANY tell common to holding KK or AA and a smart player picks up the warning signals and gives his hand up, so I gotta play cool, motherf*cker, y'all know the rules (see The Roots album, The Tipping Point: great song, and sort of THE POINT).
- I have offered great pot odds to all three players, one of whom is the loose and lucky type, and will have to play out of position against who knows how many callers, all of whom have invested in the pot and want to see a flop.

I get the good and the bad. All three call. We now have a nice pot of 3750. I have 3100 left. As soon as I see call #3, I am looking at my remaining chips. I am expecting that the whole thing will be in as soon as the flop comes down. I am not greedy. Maybe top pair will call. This is a good pot.

FREEZE

The flop

A spades
Q spades
6 hearts

GEAR SHIFT TIME

It was the best of flops. It was the worst of flops. Now is NOT the time to be indecisive.

What do you do here? Top possible set with flush draw on board and 3 players ahead?
Plan A is easy. Put your chips in. Practically guaranteed to get two folds, and a maybe call with a flush draw from a deep stack.

But lets face it. AA comes only once every so often, and even less when you need it. Flopping AAA is 11% of holding AA. Pretty damn rare. Right now, I have the nuts, subject to an outdraw, and 75% to win (keeping in mind if the board pairs, I am saved from a flush) means I can gamble my fate and take advantage here.

So I check.

I check quickly. I do not deliberate more than 7 seconds here, probably less. I need to be decisive, I need to be quick. I need to credibly CHECK (see last blog and PHil Hellmuth's comments on check tells: Jamie Gold, you should read this blog and learn something)

Why is a CHECK the right move? Any bet says "oh boy, an Ace, and since I have two of them, I will NOT get action given that I RAISED, and any ace in this pot limp-called, meaning weak kicker probably suited, and Ax spades for flush draw here is impossible) and NO ACTION is the result. AK protecting itself is the read, and the bet is respected.

A CHECK suggests one of two things, which are both VERY CREDIBLE: (1) my steal is a bust or (2) my JJ, 10 10, or 99 is a bust. A little bit of disappointment in my body language is all it takes.

So I check. UTG checks.

Steve bets. He is, hmmm, deliberate...confident....CALCULATED. Steve has A HAND. EVENTUALLY a solid 2500 comes out Hmmm....

My gut immediately suggests he flopped a set. limp followed by afforable raise by a call: small PP. This is not QQ. This is 66.

And let's comment on this bet, and compare it to the last big blog. He will turn out to have 66. A on board, raised pot, I have a set. I will get action, possibly from the desperate seeming raiser from the BB....bet value to raise the pot size.

GOOD BET

HANG ON....

Joe is thinking. He is playing with chips. He likes this flop. If I have AAA and Steve has 666, Joe has..oh oh..a draw. But I contemplated the draw when I decided to check, and I accepted my odds with the gamble.

While we wait fror Joe to respond, lets talk about my response. I am the semi-pot committed short stack who raised then checked. That 2500 bet is a lot of my stack. So I play with my stack. I separate 2500 in big chips from 600 in small chips. I weigh them in my hands. I continue to sell my hatred of this situation EVEN THOUGH Steve's eyes are on Joe and Joe's mind is on Steve's bet. The last thing I can do here is get excited.

Lets face it, nice big pot, Steve having made a bet that specifically made him NOT POT COMMITTED, if I have K 10 spades here, I LOVE that flop. Especially if I am a gambler. The size of the pot has become very tempting.

Joe will eventually RAISE ALL IN here. In the meantime, I am sitting there with apparent impatience, apparent contempt, apparent disgust. When Joe finally commits his stack, I with some hesitation, and apparent resignation, declare "looks like I'm priced in here." and put my chips in.

HERE'S WHAT IS IMPORTANT: even with only 600 of my chips left to call here, I stay in character. I don't spaz out and throw my chips in with excitement. But this is because AT NO TIME AM I ACTUALLY DISGUISING A HYPER, EXCITED ADRENALYZED STATE. I am calm, and remain calm.

LET ME MAKE THIS CLEAR: I AM NO ACTOR. In drama class, I used to giggle through my lines.

Steve calls all in, and shows his 66. Joe has 64 of spades. While this improves his draw against my set slightly, by holding the case 6 preventing a 66 pair on the board, holding that 6 kills Steve's set, while I still have the case A, three Queens, or runner runner turn card to kill a flush. The computer says 69% to win, and I will take those odds any day to parlay 4000 chips to 13000 chips with 30 to go and blinds of only 130/300.

I WAS NOT ACTING. I hated my hand, my situation, my callers, that flop. I hated them because I have seen so many AA cracks. I have had Aces full of nines fall to quad nines. I have seen my trip AAA fall to flush draws, and QQQ fall to runner runner flushes. AA is so full of expectation, that the disappoinment of seeing them cracked is an easily available memory to use to calm you down. I had AA cracked earlier that night by 44 on a ridiculous 343 flop (ordinarily, I love a tiny paired board with a big overpair to protect me from a flopped 2 pair).

THE KEY TO THIS HAND was the experience I have, which allowed me to identify the scenario, shift gears, and make good swift decisions, all without giving off any information to disguise my monster flop. I was complemented by an observing player, who had no clue I was holding such a big hand.

I had to carry through this in a hand that, from start to finish, might have been 4-5 minutes in length.

Just remember: "I hate AA. I will get sucked out on." It is your mantra. AA is your hot date, but you know she said yes to you on a dare, and you'll get no action from her because you're out of her league and you both know it. You want her. You hate her. Even when she offers up a tease, hate her. Until you clear that river card, hate her like every hot coed you were afraid to ask out in college.

This is of course, not a suckout story. No runner runner 5th six, no spade.

During my ULTIMATE BAD BEAT, it occurs to me that my mark must have put me on a flush draw because of my bet and show with the prior hand drawing nut flush. Her instincts were dead wrong.

I saw her buying into tomorrow's tournament today when I picked up my tickets.

Good luck to me.